“The Hell of Good Intentions: America’s Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of U.S. Primacy” by Stephen M. Walt is a critical examination of America’s foreign policy decisions since the end of the Cold War. Walt argues that despite the good intentions of America’s foreign policy elite, including policymakers, analysts, and academics, the United States has pursued a series of misguided and counterproductive strategies that have undermined its global leadership and contributed to the decline of U.S. primacy.
Walt begins by examining the end of the Cold War and the emergence of a unipolar world order dominated by the United States. He argues that America’s foreign policy elite became intoxicated by the idea of American exceptionalism and the belief that the United States could reshape the world in its image through military intervention and democratization efforts.
The author explores the impact of America’s foreign policy decisions in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan. He argues that the United States’ interventions in these countries, driven by the desire to spread democracy and combat terrorism, have resulted in costly and protracted conflicts that have destabilized the region and undermined America’s credibility and moral authority.
Walt examines the role of the foreign policy establishment, including think tanks, advocacy groups, and the media, in shaping America’s foreign policy decisions. He argues that these institutions have often promoted interventionist policies that serve the interests of powerful elites, rather than the broader interests of the American public.
The author discusses the consequences of America’s interventionist foreign policy for its national security and economic well-being. He argues that the United States’ military commitments around the world have strained its resources, weakened its military readiness, and contributed to the erosion of its economic competitiveness.
Walt explores the rise of populism and isolationism in American politics, highlighting the growing skepticism among the American public toward foreign entanglements and military interventions. He argues that this shift in public opinion reflects a broader disillusionment with America’s foreign policy elite and its failure to deliver on its promises of peace, prosperity, and security.
The author examines the challenges facing America’s foreign policy elite in the 21st century, including the rise of great power competition, the spread of authoritarianism, and the growing influence of non-state actors. He argues that the United States must adopt a more realistic and restrained approach to foreign policy that focuses on protecting its core interests and avoiding unnecessary military interventions.
Walt discusses the need for a more inclusive and deliberative foreign policy process that takes into account the diverse interests and perspectives of the American public. He argues that America’s foreign policy elite must be more transparent and accountable to the public, and that policymakers should prioritize diplomacy and cooperation over military force.
The author explores the potential for a more multipolar world order in which the United States shares power with other major powers such as China, Russia, and the European Union. He argues that America’s foreign policy elite must adapt to this new reality and work with other countries to address global challenges such as climate change, nuclear proliferation, and pandemics.
In conclusion, “The Hell of Good Intentions” offers a critical assessment of America’s foreign policy decisions since the end of the Cold War and calls for a more realistic and restrained approach to foreign policy. Walt’s analysis sheds light on the challenges facing America’s foreign policy elite and the need for a more inclusive and accountable foreign policy process that prioritizes diplomacy, cooperation, and the protection of core national interests.
Among other things, Trump’s startling victory revealed considerable public dissatisfaction with the foreign policy of the past three US presidents. Far from rendering him unappealing or unfit for office, Trump’s “America First” rhetoric took dead aim at the grand strategy that had guided the foreign policies of the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations. Instead of viewing the US as the “indispensable nation” responsible for policing the globe, spreading democracy, and upholding a rules-based, liberal world order, Trump was calling — however incoherently — for a foreign policy he claimed would make Americans stronger and richer at home and less committed, constrained, and bogged down abroad.
Clinton may not have deserved all of Trump’s gibes, but she could not counter his attack by citing a compelling list of undisputed foreign policy achievements, simply because there weren’t any.
In fact, the track record of US foreign policy since the end of the Cold War was difficult — maybe impossible — to defend, and certainly not in a way that American voters could relate to and understand. Instead of a series of clear and obvious successes, the years after the Cold War were filled with visible failures and devoid of major accomplishments. President Obama had even suggested that modest achievements were all once could reasonably expect, telling an interviewer that his approach to foreign policy “may not always be sexy… But it avoids errors. You hit singles, you hit doubles; every once in a while you may be able to hit a home run.” There were precious few home runs in the years since the Cold War ended, however, and plenty of pop-ups, strikeouts, and weak ground balls instead.
Nor was the US successful at spreading its preferred political values. The collapse of the Soviet empire was a striking vindication for America’s democratic ideals, and many observers expected these principles to take root and deepen around the world. These idealistic hopes went unfulfilled, however: existing dictatorships proved resilient, several new democracies eventually slid back toward authoritarian rule, US-led efforts at regime change produced failed states instead, and, over time, it was the US that began to abandon its core principles. In the years after September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, top US officials authorized torture, committed war crimes, conducted massive electronic surveillance of US citizens, and continued to support a number of brutal authoritarian regimes in key regions. The 2008 financial crisis exposed deep corruption within key financial institutions and cast doubt on whether US-style free-market capitalism was the best formula for sustained economic growth. Meanwhile, America’s democratic order was increasingly paralyzed by ideological polarization and partisan gridlock, and new democracies increasingly modeled their constitutions on examples from other countries rather than on the US.
Although this might seem obvious, even a truism, Trump was telling his listeners what many of them wanted to hear: US power and influence should be used not to help others to advance a broader set of political values around the world, but rather to make Americans better off.
What had gone wrong? US foreign policy did not fail because the US faced a legion of powerful, crafty, and ruthless adversaries whose brilliant stratagems repeatedly thwarted Washington’s noble intentions and well-crafted designs. Nor did it fail because the US experienced and improbable run of bad luck.
On the contrary, US foreign policy failed because its leaders pursued a series of unwise and unrealistic objectives and refused to learn from their mistakes. In particular, the deeper cause of America’s recurring foreign policy failures was the combination of overwhelming US primacy, a misguided grand strategy, and an increasingly dysfunctional foreign policy community.
Yet because the US was already wealthy, powerful, and secure, there was little need to “go abroad in search of monsters to destroy” and little to gain even if these efforts succeeded. The result was a paradox: US primacy made an ambitious grand strategy possible, but it also made it less necessary.
Leading members of the foreign policy establishment undoubtedly believed that liberal hegemony was the right strategy for America, but they also understood that it was very good for them. Open-ended efforts to remake the world in America’s image gave the foreign policy establishment plenty to do, appealed to its members’ self-regard, and maximized their status and political power. It bolstered the case for maintaining military capabilities that dwarfed those of the other major powers, and it allowed special interest groups with narrow foreign policy objectives to lobby for their preferred policies and logroll with others, thereby making it more likely that the government would give each some of what it wanted. Liberal hegemony, in short, was a full-employment policy for the foreign policy elite and the path of least resistance for groups seeking to convince the US government to do something somewhere far away on behalf of somebody else.
Instead of being a disciplined meritocracy that rewards innovative thinking and performance, the foreign policy community is in fact a highly conformist, inbred professional caste whose beliefs and policy preferences have evolved little over the past 25 years, even as the follies and fiascoes kept piling up. The establishment’s deep commitment to liberal hegemony is also sharply at odds with the preferences of most Americans.
But the US has already paid a substantial price, with the costs still mounting. Trump’s stewardship of US foreign policy has had serious consequences and has squandered the hard-won positions of influence the US had established since WW2.
Absent a crushing international setback, however, the foreign policy establishment will not embrace a strategy that would diminish its own power, status, and sense of self-worth. If outsiders such as Obama or Trump could not pull off a more fundamental change, who could?
It did not have to be this way. The US is an exceptionally lucky country, one that is wealthy and vastly powerful, and it has no serious enemies nearby. That remarkable good fortune gives its leaders enormous latitude in the handling of foreign affairs. The men and women responsible for US foreign policy over the past 25 years have repeatedly made bad choices and squandered many of these enduring advantages. They may have acted with the best of intentions, but their recurring failures are part of the reason Donald Trump became president.
Small wonder, then, that prominent intellectuals believed that the era of great power competition and grand ideological rivalries was finally behind us and humankind could concentrate on amassing wealth in a benevolent “new world order.” American power would be marshaled fore (nearly) everyone’s benefit, and other states were expected to welcome Washington’s leadership, accept its well-intentioned guidance, imitate the American model of democratic capitalism, and be grateful for the benefits US primacy would provide.
But they were all third- to fifth-rate powers when compared with the mighty US, and none of them posed an existential threat to the US or to any of its vital interests. As General Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wryly noted in 1991, “I’m running out of demons. I’m running out of enemies. I’m down to Castro and Kim Il Sung.”
Yet in a move clearly designed to provide an alternative to the US-led liberal order, Beijing began to develop its own set of international institutions. Chief among them was a new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which had attracted 57 “founding members” by 2016. The Obama administration refused to participate and tried to persuade other countries to follow its lead, but Washington could not even convince such close US allies as Israel, Germany, or Great Britain to stay out of the new organization. And when Trump announced that he would abandon the TPP as soon as he took office, Beijing immediately offered to organize regional trade under the auspices of a “Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership” that excluded the US.
Viewed as a whole, the Iraq War was an eloquent reminder of the limits of military power: having broken Iraq and ignited a bitter sectarian struggle, Washington had no idea how to fix it.
This commitment to promote certain human rights extended to religious freedom, which successive US officials declared to be a cherished constitutional value, a strategic interest, and a foreign policy priority.
The backlash against liberal democracy gained additional momentum when globalization failed to deliver as promised. Lowering political barriers to global trade and investment did boost world trade, helped countries like China and India lift millions of people out of deep poverty, reduced the costs of goods for US consumers, and increased overall livings standards in many places. But in the developed world — and especially the US — the benefits of rapid globalization went mostly to the wealthy and well-educated: Wall Street won big, but Main Street did not.
Proponents of globalization also believed that an array of existing international institutions would facilitate cooperation between states, dampen conflicts between them, and help overcome familiar dilemmas of collective action. Instead of growing more capable and legitimate, however, the US-led institutions that seemed invincible in the early 1990s — NATO, the World Bank, the IMF, and the WTO — “are now in rapid and unmistakable decline.” Even more charitable appraisals acknowledge that existing institutions are not working well and are badly in need of reform, yet the measures needed to update and improve them have been almost impossible to implement.
History did not end; if anything, it galloped off in the opposite direction. Nor were these setbacks the result of a series of unfortunate accidents or a run of bad luck; they were mostly due to inflated expectations, hubris, and bad policy choices.
Given the potential leverage that all three presidents had at their disposal, their inability to make meaningful progress toward a solution they believed to be, as Obama put it, “in Israel’s interest, the Palestinians’ interest, America’s interest, and the world’s interest” was a humiliating display of US impotence and diplomatic incompetence.
Washington kept demanding that other states refrain from developing WMD, at the same time making it clear that it intended to keep a vast nuclear arsenal of its own. If the mighty US believed its security depended on having a powerful nuclear deterrent, then surely a few weaker and more vulnerable states might come to a similar conclusion. Moreover, the US decision to ignore its earlier pledge and topple Gaddafi in 2011 showed the world that Washington could not be trusted and that states with no deterrent were vulnerable to attack. That lesson was not lost on countries such as North Korea or Iran, which had every reason to fear US-led regime change and thus ample incentive to preserve a nuclear option.
The most obvious failure of US counterterrorism policy, of course, was September 11. The Bush administration responded to the attacks by launching a “global war on terror,” with the president vowing “to rid the world of evil.” Unfortunately, this mindset led directly to the fateful decision to invade Iraq, which Bush and his aides believed would “send a message” to America’s enemies and spark a democratic transformation of the region, which they assumed would make it harder for extremists to recruit new followers.
They could not have been more wrong. The occupation of Iraq fueled anti-Americanism across the Arab and Islamic world, and Iraq quickly became a magnet for extremist eager to take up arms against Uncle Sam.
As the head of the US Africa Command, General Thomas Waldhauser, admitted in 2017, “We could knock off all the ISIL and Boko Haram this afternoon… But by the end of the week, so to speak, those ranks would be filled.” Further evidence that the war on terror had become an endless, ever-expanding effort were the revelations that 17 percent of US commando troops were now deployed in Africa (up from a mere 1 percent in 2006).
Nor was it obvious that all this effort and expense was necessary or cost-effective. Over time, it became increasingly clear that most terrorists were not brilliant criminal masterminds but incompetent bunglers.
In 2001, the year the 9/11 attacks occurred, more American died from peptic ulcers than from all acts of terrorism. Thus, the enormous political, economic, and human costs of the war on terror — including the instability it has sown in many countries — was based on a panicked and faulty estimate of the true danger America faced.
The grand strategy of liberal hegemony seeks to expand and deepen a liberal world order under the benevolent leadership of the US. At the domestic level, a liberal order is one where most states are governed according to liberal political principles: democracy, the rule of law, religious and social tolerance, and respect for basic human rights. At the international level, a liberal order is characterized by economic openness (i.e., low barriers to trade and investment) where relations between states are regulated by law and by institutions such as the WTO and the Non-Proliferation Treaty or multilateral alliances such as NATO.
Proponents of liberal hegemony do not believe that liberal orders arise spontaneously or sustain themselves automatically. On the contrary, the believe that such orders require active leadership by powerful countries that are deeply committed to liberal ideals. Not surprisingly, supporters of this strategy believe the US is uniquely qualified to play that role. In practice, therefore, liberal hegemony rests on two core beliefs: (1) the US must remain much more powerful than any other country, and (2) it should use its position of primacy to defend, spread, and deepen liberal values around the world.
They pushed hard to dissolve the systems of imperial preference that such countries as Great Britain employed, along with other forms of protectionism, in favor of a more open international economic order that would encourage trade and growth and create opportunities for US businesses. And they recognized that any system of states needed norms of rules (i.e., “institutions”) to facilitate mutually beneficial cooperation — at the same time taking care to ensure that these rules were consistent with US interests.
Liberal hegemony rests on a number of core premises or assumptions about the nature of world politics and the US role in the current international system. Together, these beliefs make the strategy appear to be necessary, affordable, and achievable, as well as consistent with core American values.
The intellectual foundation on which liberal hegemony rests is a family of interrelated theories of international relations: (1) democratic peace theory, (2) economic liberalism, and (3) liberal institutionalism. Democratic peace theory claims that well-established liberal democracies do not fight wars with each other and are strongly inclined to cooperate on key issues. Economic liberalism argues that open international orders with high levels of trade and foreign investment maximize efficiency and overall economic growth. As states become increasingly interdependent, so the argument runs, the costs of conflict increase and the likelihood of war declines because states will not want to jeopardize the economic ties on which their prosperity depends. Liberal institutionalism posits that strong international regimes — i.e., rules, norms, and formal organizations such as the WTO or the UN — can facilitate cooperation among states, discourage overly competitive behavior, and make it less likely that violent disputes will occur or escalate. Taken together, these theories implied that the US could foster a more prosperous and peaceful world by spreading democracy, promoting economic globalization, and creating, expanding, or strengthening international institutions.
His administration’s 2015 National Security Strategy referred to US “leadership” more than 35 times, implying that the world might descend into chaos were Washington not firmly in charge.
This belief in the necessity for American leadership flows in part from the recognition that powerful states sometimes need to cajole others into cooperating in order to achieve common goals. If the world’s most powerful country disengaged completely and did not encourage other states to address global problems, selfish national interests might loom larger and achievable solutions to challenges such as climate change might never be reached.
If other states balked, US policymakers were convinced that the US had the tools to force them to comply. It could impose economic sanctions, give aid to a hostile regime’s foreign or domestic opponent, undermine rivals through covert action, and use military force to compel them to capitulate. If necessary, the US could invade and depose hostile regimes at little cost or risk to itself. Once these obstreperous tyrants were gone, the US and the rest of the liberal international community could step in and help liberated and grateful populations create new and legitimate democracies, thereby expanding the liberal, pro-American order even more. Convinced that world politics were already going their way, US officials were confident that they could accelerate the process reliably, safely, and cheaply.
The idea that serious dangers might emerge from almost anywhere made liberal hegemony seem necessary, while the perceived ability to project power and influence at low cost and risk made global activism seem feasible. Threats might emerge from any quarter, but the US could keep them at bay with a sophisticated combination of force, diplomacy, and economic and political engagement.
They were also confident that most states would recognize America’s benevolence, welcome US leadership, and gratefully embrace Washington’s blueprint for a liberal order. Only “rogue states” led by illegitimate dictators and other international troublemakers would be inclined to resist the exercise of US power, and most of these states were comparatively weak and politically isolated. In any case, they were assumed to be headed for the dustbin of history, with a helping hand from Uncle Sam.
Once committed to the “self-evident” truth that all humans possess the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” Americans cannot deny these rights to others without betraying their own beliefs. And as John Mearsheimer emphasizes, because Americans regard these principles as the ideal blueprint on which to found a just society and promote world peace, it is almost inevitable that they will seek to share these wonderful ideals with those who presently lack them. John Quincy Adams may have recognized that the early republic was too weak to “go out in search for monsters to destroy,” but the temptation to spread liberal ideals became more alluring as the US grew stronger. Once the country stood at the pinnacle of power, it was impossible to resist.
As the former deputy secretary of state Strobe Tallbott observed in 2003, “a recurring and animating premise of US foreign policy has always been the righteous imbalance of power; that is, an imbalance in favour of the US, its friends, its allies, its proteges and, crucially, its fellow democracies.”
In a revealing sign of Washington’s global ambitions, every inch of the planet was not assigned to one of six “unified combatant commands.”
What is wrong with dominance, in the service of sound principles and high ideals?
Despite the strategic importance of the Middle East oil and the country’s long-standing commitment to several local powers, the US had previously relied on local allies to uphold the balance of power and had kept its own ground and air forces out of the region. That approach changed in 1993, when the Clinton administration announced a new policy of “dual containment.” Instead of preserving a balance of power in the Persian Gulf by playing Iran and Iraq off against each other, the US would keep significant ground and air forces in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Kuwait, in order to contain both.
Under liberal hegemony, in short, the US kept taking on new security commitments without reducing any of its other obligations. As noted int thee previous chapter, by 2016 the US was committed to defending more countries than any time in its history, while simultaneously trying to pacify several distant war-torn societies and conducting violent counterterrorism operations in many other places. America’s “sphere of influence” had never been greater, though how much influence the US actually exercised in these places was far from clear.
By portraying US values as the ideal model for others and assigning Washington primary responsibility for peace, prosperity, and progress, the strategy appealed to Americans’ sense of virtue and self-regard. It also gave the foreign policy community in Washington a new and lofty purpose, while making those idealistic goals seem easy to achieve.
Moreover, the strategy’s promised benefits were undeniably appealing: Who wouldn’t prefer to live in a world where war is rare; where goods, investment, and people can move freely; where evildoers are contained, or better yet, punished; and where human rights are increasingly respected — especially if all these wonderful things could be achieved at little cost or risk? Given how most US foreign policy experts saw the post-Cold War world, it might have been more surprising if the US had not succumbed to these idealistic visions.
US leaders have also recognized that masking the exercise of power within a multilateral institution can make US dominance more tolerable to others and help overcome some of the obstacles to effective international cooperation.
At the same time, liberal hegemony ignores an even more important principle of international relations: imbalances of power make other states nervous, especially when the strongest state uses its power with little regard for others’ interests. It was entirely predictable that the so-called rogue states would look for ways to keep American power in check, for example, because the US had made spreading democracy a centerpiece of its grand strategy and taken dead aim at a number of these countries. It was equally unsurprising that China, Russia, and a number of other states were alarmed by US efforts to spread liberal values, because such efforts, if successful, threatened existing political arrangements in all non-liberal states and the privileged positions of their ruling elites.
Yet America’s dominant position also alarmed some of America’s closest allies, including some fellow democracies. The French foreign minister Hubert Vedrine repeatedly complained about American “hyper-power” during the 1990s, and he once said that “the entire foreign policy of France… is aimed at making the world of tomorrow composed of several poles, not just one.” The German chancellor Gerhard Schroder echoed this concern, warning that the danger of US unilateralism was “undeniable.” Not surprisingly, both states actively opposed bold US initiatives — such as the invasion of Iraq — on more than one occasion.
Their concerns were well-founded — not because the US deliberately used its power to harm friendly countries like France, but because America’s vast capabilities made it easy to hurt them by accident. The invasion of Iraq is a perfect illustration: it eventually led to the emergence of ISIS, whose online recruiting and brutal conduct inspired terrorist attacks in a number of European countries and contributed to the refugee crisis that engulfed Europe in 2015. European officials were correct to oppose the war back in 2003; they understood that destabilizing the Middle East might harm them in ways they could anticipate, if not entirely foresee. Removing Saddam Hussein also eliminated Iran’s principal regional rival and enhanced its position in the Persian Gulf, thereby threatening close US partners such as Saudi Arabia. Washington obviously did not intend to harm its allies when it decided to invade Iraq, but that is precisely what it did. As the Oxford historian Timothy Garton Ash noted in April 2002, “the problem with American power is not that it is American. The problem is simply the power. It would be dangerous even for an archangel to wield so much power.”
Even as they were alarmed by US dominance, key US allies also took advantage of it by free-riding, thereby forcing Washington to bear greater burdens in places like Afghanistan. Such behavior was only to be expected: Why should other states take on difficult and costly burdens when Uncle Sam wanted to do most of the work? And then, when Washington tried to get its allies to do more on matters where their own interests were more engaged — such as the Balkan Wars of the 1990s or the Libyan intervention of 2011 — it discovered that its allies could not do the job without considerable US help.
Liberal hegemony also failed because US leaders exaggerated what American power — especially its military power — could accomplish. America’s potent military arsenal freed Americans from the fear of being conquered or coerced, but it did not allow Washington to dictate to others or give US leaders reliable control over domestic political developments in other countries.
In part, superior power did not translate into reliable control because the targets of US pressure cared more about the issues at stake and were willing to pay a higher price to defend their independence or other vital interests. States such as Serbia, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and North Korea were vastly weaker than the US but none of them capitulated at the first hint of US pressure. Indeed, most US opponents were willing to absorb considerable punishment without saying “uncle,” thus limiting Washington’s ability to impose its will upon them.
The Afghan Taliban are still fighting after more than 17 years of war, and the lengthy US occupation of Iraq never gave Washington the ability to tell the country’s post-Saddam leaders what to do.
Military power is a crude instrument. It is useful for certain purposes, but not for others, and it always produces unintended consequences.
Nor is military power a particular flexible instrument, the growing reliance on more precise tools (such as remotely piloted drones or elite special operations units) notwithstanding. Using military force is ultimately a political act with its own logic and momentum, and it cannot be turned on an off like a light switch or simply dialed up or down as circumstances require. If success is not immediately forthcoming, neither civilian officials nor senior military commanders are likely to admit that they miscalculated. Nor will they be inclined to stop before victory is achieved. Setbacks will create pressures to escalate, and wars begun in response to false fears or false hope can easily turn into open-ended campaigns.
Proponents of liberal hegemony were convinced that they could use military power selectively and cheaply in the service of an ambitious global agenda; they found themselves trapped in unwinnable quagmires instead.
Excessive faith in US power also encouraged US officials to eschew genuine diplomacy — that is, the adjustment of competing interests for mutual benefit — and to rely excessively on ultimatums and coercive pressure.
Compounding this problem was the widespread tendency to see the world as a Manichaean struggle between virtuous liberal states and the malevolent, rights-abusing tyrants. Instead of attributing conflicts between states to differing perceptions, competing historical narratives, or straightforward clashes of national interests, US officials and influential pundits routinely portrayed them as a confrontations between good and evil.
Because they saw opponents as evil and believed they held the high cards, US officials tended to view concessions made to secure a deal a form of surrender, even if the resulting agreement gave them most of what they wanted. In short, instead of genuine bargaining, Washington tended to simply tell others what it wanted them to do. If they refused to comply, US leaders tightened the screws or reached fro the sword.
Finally, diplomacy based on threats, ultimatums, and a refusal to compromise rarely produce durable outcomes. Weaker parties usually retain some bargaining power — especially where their core interests are concerned — making it difficult for even the most powerful states to get absolutely everything they might want from the other side. Equally important, if the weaker side is forced to capitulate under duress and in ways it regards as unfair, it will resent the result and seek to reopen the issue when conditions are more favorable. For diplomacy to work, both parties have to get some of what they want, or those making the largest concessions will have little incentive to abide by the deal over the longer term.
By exaggerating their ability to bend other states to America’s will, US leaders undermined their own diplomatic efforts and missed important opportunities to resolve conflicts without having to use force.
Trying to spread democracy via regime change was doomed to fail for another reason. Changing an entire system of government inevitably creates winners and losers, and the latter will often take up arms to oppose the new order. At the same time, regime change creates power vacuums that facilitate these acts of resistance. Local sources of identity, allegiance, and obligation — whether national, ethnic, tribal, sectarian, or whatever — do not suddenly disappear when a tyrant is toppled, and some of the people the US was trying to help resented America’s heavy-handed interference and were willing to fight and die to resist it. The more the US tried to spread its liberal principles, the more opposition it created.
Furthermore, US officials in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and Libya lacked the detailed local knowledge necessary to guide successful state-building. As an infamous PowerPoint slide from the Afghan War made clear, state-building in the context of a counterinsurgency campaign was an absurdly complex process that could barely be comprehended, let alone implemented successfully. Personal accounts from participants in these efforts make it abundantly clear that the people responsible for these efforts did not know which local leaders to trust or support, did not understand the complex and subtle networks of allegiance and authority which they were trying to work, and inevitably trampled on local customs and sensitivities.
Over time, some US commanders and diplomats eventually acquired some of the knowledge that might have helped them be more successful. But then their tour of duty would end, and their replacements would have to learn them same lessons over again. As one former US Army commander ruefully recalled, “we haven’t fought the wars overseas for the past 15 years. We’ve fought them one year at a time for the last 15 years.”
Moreover, even well-intentioned efforts to aid local populations repeatedly foundered in a sea of corruption and administrative incompetence. Pouring development and reconstruction aid into societies in the absence of effective institutions guaranteed that much of the aid would ben squandered or, even worse, would end up in the hands of America’s enemies.
Even worse, the central government in Kabul had little incentive to implement the reforms that might help the US defeat the Taliban, as the billions of dollars of US economic aid on which leaders in Kabul depended (and routinely diverted for their own gains) would evaporate if the war were ever won. And because US officials kept insisting that defeat or withdrawal was not an option, they could not pressure America’s local clients to undertake meaningful reforms by threatening to leave them to their fates.
America failed not because it didn’t try, but because its moderates were incompetent and unpopular. As soon as they began taking money and orders from America, they were tarred by radicals as CIA agents who were corrupt and traitors to the revolution. America was toxic, and everything it touched turned to sand in its hands.
A final justification for liberal hegemony was the idea that the world was shrinking, that grave dangers could emerged from virtually anywhere, and that it was therefore necessary for the US to try to monitor and guide events almost everywhere. But the popular image of a “global image” was mostly a myth. Advances in military technology did not give hostile states a usable capacity to threaten the US homeland in strategically consequential ways, because hostile foreign powers could be reliably deterred by America’s vastly greater retaliatory capabilities.
Every hour a president spent fretting about Iraq or Afghanistan or Somalia or Colombia was an hour he could not devote to domestic concerns, and every dollar spent on foreign military bases an overseas interventions was a dollar that could not be devoted to improving the lives of Americans at home or left in taxpayer’s pockets.
Equally important, US negotiators abandoned the futile hope that pressure alone would convince Tehran to give up its entire enrichment capacity. That concession to reality opened the door to a compromise that avoided war, blocked Iran’s path to a bomb, and allowed Tehran to save face.
These same features can also be seen in the US approach to China. US leaders understood that China was too big to push around, so they generally refrained from issuing ultimatums or relying solely on threats or sanctions. They were sometimes critical of China’s authoritarians system and human rights record, but Clinton, Bush, and Obama, quickly learned that hectoring Beijing on these issues accomplished little. US leaders recognized that Sino-American relations were likely to be increasingly conflictive, and they took a number of steps designed to constraint Chinese influence, but they also understood that cooperation was still necessary on climate change, global health, North Korea, and international economic issues. In short, when dealing with Beijing, US officials forgot about regime change and the other revisionist elements of liberal hegemony, concentrated on managing relations with the world’s number two power, and did about as well as could be expected.
The lesson is clear: when the US abandoned liberal hegemony and adopted a more realistic and flexible approach, its ability to achieve specific foreign policy goals increased significantly.
By viewing their country as the “indispensable power” and making it the linchpin of security arrangements around the world, US officials had unwittingly created a security architecture that depended on America’s being engaged, powerful, resolute, and effective nearly everywhere. Instead of encouraging regional powers to resolve their differences and develop security arrangements that didn’t require a lot of active American guidance, US leaders had created a world order that would disintegrate rapidly if the US stopped bearing the global burdens it had once eagerly embraced. No wonder US foreign policy elites viewed Trump’s arrival with alarm; the liberal world order to which they were deeply committed was more delicate than it appeared, and they knew it.
With the benefit of hindsight, the decision to embrace a grand strategy of liberal hegemony and to pursue it despite repeated failures seems baffling. It was the height of hubris for Americans — who are, after all, only 5 percent of the world’s population — to believe that they had discovered the only workable model for a modern society and the only possible blueprint for a durable and peaceful world order. It was naive for them to think that they could create stable and successful democracies in deeply divided societies that had never been democratic before. It was positively delusional to assume that this objective could be achieved rapidly and at low cost. It was unrealistic to believe that other states would not be alarmed by America’s efforts to reshape the world politics and to assume further that opponents would not devise effective ways to thwart US designs. And it was stubborn to the point of insanity to keep chasing the same elusive objective after so many repeated setbacks.
So why did so liberal hegemony remain the default condition of US grand strategy? Part of the answer — but only part — is the vast power the US possessed and the favorable geopolitical position it enjoyed after the Soviet Union collapsed. To borrow Bill Clinton’s explanation for his embarrassing affair with a White House intern, the US opted for liberal hegemony and kept trying to make it work “because it could.”
The end of the Cold War had left the US in a position of preponderance unseen since the Roman Empire. This good fortune could not protect the country from every conceivable danger, but it was still the most secure great power in modern history. The combination of vast power — along with what the historian C. Vann Woodward called the “free security” resulting from America’s providential location — was the permissive condition that allowed the US to intervene with near impunity all over the world without having to worry too much about the short-term consequences back home.
Because the US was so rich, powerful, and secure, it could afford to follow a misguided grand strategy for a long time without bankrupting itself completely or leaving itself vulnerable to foreign invasion. Had it faced a serious peer competitor after 1993 or some number of powerful and hostile neighbors, it would have been forced to devote more attention to protecting the US homeland and it would have been less willing to take on costly new commitments or try to shape political conditions in distant lands. Since WW2, however, and especially since 1993, the US has had the luxury of being able to intervene wherever it chooses and then withdraw if things go badly — as it did in Vietnam, Iraq, Somalia, and Libya — leaving the local populations to their fates.
At the same time, these advantages also left the country with relatively little gain from its ambitious campaign to remake the world. The benefits of an ambitious and successful foreign policy are not zero, of course, but in 1993 the US was already rich and secure, already led stable alliances with a number of other powerful states, was on fairly good terms with many other countries, and was positioned to do well in a globalizing world economy. Even if liberal hegemony had worked much better than it did — for example, by successfully turning Iraq and Afghanistan into thriving democracies — it would not have improved America’s overall position all that much.
Indeed, because the US was already wealthy, strong, and secure, it could have just as easily chosen to draw down its overseas commitments somewhat, passed the burdens for regional security in some areas onto other states, and devoted more time, money, and attention to improving the lives of citizens back home. This approach might even have enhanced US leverage over its remaining allies, who might have worked harder to preserve US backing and been more sensitive to Washington’s wishes.
In a democracy, foreign policy is not simply the product of a president’s vision. It is also shaped by competing forces in civil society and by what might be termed the “foreign policy community.” The impact of civil society will be especially large in a liberal democracy such as the US, with its tradition of divided government, constitutional guarantees of free speech and association, and ambivalent attitude toward centralized power. These forces will be even more powerful when there is not compelling danger to focus the national mind and when policymakers are freer to act as they see fit or as domestic pressures dictate.
By the 1960s, however, as America’s global role grew, education expanded, and foreign policymaking required more specialized expertise, “a revolution was taking place in the structure of America’s foreign policy leadership. Power passed almost imperceptibly from the old Eastern Establishment to a new Professional Elite, from bankers and lawyers who would take time off to help manage the affairs of government to full-time foreign policy experts.”
At first glance, this expansion of professional expertise would appear to be a significant improvement over the “old guard” establishment, and it should have produced more intelligent and successful policy decisions. Instead of relying on a self-elected group of elites drawn primarily from the corporate world, US foreign policy would be handled by a more diverse group of experts who had specialized training in economics, military affairs, history, diplomacy, or regional studies. In the theory, the clash of competing views among these well-informed professionals would generate a livelier debate, thereby ensuring that alternative policy choices were vetted in advance and making major blunders less likely. When mistakes did occur — as they inevitably would — this same well-trained policy community would quickly identify the misstep(s) and alter course.
This world has expanded dramatically over the past half century. For example, the president’s own foreign policy staff — embodied by the National Security Council — has grown from fewer than 20 people in 1961 to roughly 200 under President George W. Bush and more than 400 under President Obama.
The Department of State consists of roughly 25,000 Foreign Service and civil service personnel (plus 45,000 locally employed civilians worldwide), while the intelligent community comprises 17 separate agencies with an annual budget well in excess of $50B and employing some 100,000 people. More than 4 million Americans now hold some sort of security clearance, and close to 1 million are cleared to read top secret material.
There are more than 1,800 public policy “think tanks” in the US, approximately one-quarter of them located in the nation’s capital.
Think tanks perform several functions within the foreign policy community. Staff members conduct independent research, testify to Congress and other government agencies, and appear frequently as media commentators. Most think tanks engage in extensive outreach efforts via their own websites, blogs, publications, seminars, legislative breakfasts, and other events, all intended to enhance their visibility inside Washington, facilitate fundraising, and increase their influence over policy. Think tanks can also play a critical role in many stages of a foreign policy professional’s career: they provide entry-level opportunities for young policy wonks seeking to make their way into government positions, and they provide sinecures for former government officials, including those seeking to return to public service at a later date. In this sense, the DC-based think tank community provides an arena where foreign policy ideas can be discussed, debated, criticized, and defended, and some parts of it operate almost as a “shadow government” preparing people and policies for future administrations.
Connections of this kind are invaluable for individuals seeking to rise (or remain) within the foreign policy community, for there is no single, clear, and established route to power inside the US political system. Unlike the professions of law, medicine, or accounting, there are no procedure for professional certification. Prominent members of this community may have advanced degrees in political science, history, international affairs, or public policy, but such training is not a prerequisite for entry or advancement.
There is an important personal dimension here as well. To be a prepared and well-connected member of the broader foreign policy community opens doors, confers status, creates lucrative opportunities, and feeds one’s ego and sense of self-worth. It’s cool to have a White House pass or a top secret security clearance, and it’s gratifying to be nominated for membership in an elite organization like the Council on Foreign Relations or invited to testify on the Hill. It’s a heady experience to feel that one is “in the know,” to participate in conferences attended by other foreign policy VIPs, to be asked to advise a regional commander or consult for the National Intelligence Council — all the more when one is young, ambitious, somewhat insecure, and eager to get ahead. But the higher one rises, the greater the benefits and the more exclusive the company becomes, so the incentive to avoid any steps that might lead to being cast off the heights of Olympus grows ever greater. Given how hard they have worked to make it up the mountain, it’s easy to understand why most members of the foreign policy establishment go to great lengths to stay there. And that means keeping their reputations intact and keeping their thoughts and recommendations “within the lines” (at least in public).
To be clear: most foreign policy professionals are genuine patriots who seek to make the world a better place, at least as they would define it. But they also have an obvious personal interest in the US pursuing an ambitious global agenda. The busier the US government is abroad, the more jobs there will be for foreign policy experts, the greater the share of national wealth that will be devoted to addressing global problems, and the greater their potential influence will be.
The report then prescribes a breathtaking set of national security imperatives based on the overarching belief that “America must stand for, seek and secure a world of liberty under law.” In short, the ultimate aim of US foreign policy is not to protect the well-being of the American people, but rather to ensure that every citizen on the entire planet lives a stable and well-governed liberal democracy.
America’s “primary task” regarding a rising China is to convince Beijing that it can “achieve its legitimate ambitions within the current international order,” though it is left to Washington to decide whether Beijing’s ambitions are “legitimate” or not.
By the time one is finished reading, it is hard to think of any international issue the authors do not regard as a vital concern for the US, even though no president could attempt — let alone achieve — more than a handful of these initiatives.
Why? Simple: because vital interests are everywhere. By the time one finishes reading, there isn’t a square inch on the planet left to itself.
Revealingly, the justifications for these actions is not the well-being or comfort of the American people; instead, the report places “a priority on strength at home in order to underpin a strong US role in the world”. A strong economy is desirable not because it would allow Americans to lead more bountiful or fulfilling lives; it is necessary so that the US can swing a big stick around the world.
In Asia, the US should continue the Obama administration’s “pivot” and implement TPP, and it may have to “impose regional costs” on China for its actions in the South China Sea and inflict “commensurate economic penalties to slow Chinese dominance.” At the same time, Washington should “facilitate China’s continued integration so as to blunt its historical fears of ‘containment.’” In other words, the US should make a sustained effort to contain China — and maybe even work to retard its rise — but Beijing won’t mind if Washington does so politely.
The report does not explain how Iran will manage to “dominate” the Arab Middle East with a defense budget that is less than 5% of America’s and in the face of potential opposition from more heavily armed states such as Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and several others.
And like the two earlier report, it is silent regarding America’s geographic position, resource endowments, demographic characteristics, underlying economic interests, or core strategic requirements. It does not try to rank vital interests, assess potential threats to those interests, or consider different ways these dangers might be reduced.
Public opinion can be fickle, and it often responds to vivid events or to the cues provided by the elites. For example, support for military action against ISIS soared after the extremist group beheaded two American journalists in 2014, only to fall to earth again a few months later.
First, advocates of activism inflate threats to convince Americans that the world is a dangerous place and that their security depends on active US engagement. Second, supporters exaggerate the benefits of liberal hegemony, arguing that it is the best way to defuse potential dangers, enhance prosperity, and spread cherished political values. Lastly, government officials try to conceal the costs of their ambitious foreign policy in order to persuade Americans that it is a bargain even when successes are few and far between.
For starters, citizens lack direct access to reliable information about most foreign policy issues. If the economy is in free fall and millions of people are losing their jobs, if roads and bridges are crumbling, or if government agencies bungle a disaster relief effort, ordinary citizens can see this for themselves. But few Americans have independent information about Al Qaeda’s inner workings, the details of US trade agreements, the history of Iran’s nuclear program, the scope and impact of US drone operations, or whether Russia did in fact hack the DNC’s computers in 2016. For these and countless other international topics, citizens have to rely on what the government officials or well-connected experts tell them, and the media that reports on these issues depends on the same sources for information as well. As a result, people inside the foreign policy community have considerable latitude to shape what the public thinks about key issues.
Governments can also influence what the public knows by classifying information, so as to keep citizens in the dark about the actions top government officials undertake.
No wonder the Defense Department paid at least 50 professional sports teams a total of $10M to conduct patriotic ceremonies at games as part of a broader campaign to reinforce public support and enhance recruiting. In effect, US taxpayers were paying for a public relations program designed in part to convince them to pay even more.
When all think alike, no one thinks very much.
If Americans become convinced that minor problems are really existential hazards, they will squander vast sums chasing monsters of their own imagining. Even worse, policymakers may take preventive actions that are in fact counterproductive, thereby turning minor problems into larger ones.
Such claims often rest on peculiar beliefs about the basic nature of world politics. Threat inflators typically reject balance-of-power logic — which argues that powerful or aggressive states usually face ever-increasing resistance — and instead maintain that states are more likely to “bandwagon” with threatening states. If the US does not maintain decisive military superiority or fails to respond in some far-flung corner of the earth, so the argument runs, its allies will lose confidence and quickly realign with America’s enemies.
Relatedly, threat inflators believe that US credibility is extremely important and inherently fragile. When the US does respond, however, the effects are feeling, and Washington has to demonstrate its will and prowess again next time a potential challenge arises.
Repeated scholarly studies on reputation and credibility show that the world does not work this way: states judge how others will respond primarily based on the interests at stake and not on how the country acted in a radically different context. To take an obvious illustration, how the US responds to a crisis in a minor power far away says little or nothing about how it would respond to a direct attack on the US homeland or against an important US ally.
Yet this argument requires all of the following statements to be true: (1) distant terrorist cells set a high priority on attacking the US, (2) they can evade all the post-9/11 measures taken to enhance the security of the US homeland, (3) an attack, if it does occur, will inflict enormous costs, and (4) the area in which they are currently operating is vital to their success, and alternative “safe havens” do not exist.
There were 47 Islamic terrorist attacks in Western countries between 2012 and 2016. These attacks killed 269 people, more than half of them in a single attack in a Paris nightclub. By comparison, roughly 15,000 Americans are murdered each year by guns. Lighting strikes and bathroom accidents take more American lives than terrorism.
In addition to exaggerating enemy capabilities, threat inflators typically describe potential enemies as irrevocably hostile, irrational, and impossible to deter, which in turn implies that they must be removed.
As George W. Bush famously explained after 9/11 attacks, the terrorists “hate our freedoms.”
This argument reinforces a key article of faith for proponents of liberal hegemony — the idea that the US is an exceptional country that is always a force for good in the world — and implies that only misguided or evil people could possibly oppose whatever the US does around the world.
In the 1980s the US and its allies together outspent all potential threatening states by a margin of more than two to one. That margin increased to more than five to one when the Soviet Union collapsed.
Given these favorable reality, our response is to assume that US allies are unreliable and to warn that they will abandon the US and bandwagon with America’s rivals if the US does not protect them against every conceivable danger.
Threat inflation thrives when dangers are difficult to measure. Tanks, planes, ships, and defense budgets are easy to count and compare, but gauging other dangers can be more difficult. Anyone with a decent imagination can dream up an infinite number of frightening scenarios, and it is sometimes hard to prove that some hypothetical danger is overblown.
This is the reason behind Dick Cheney’s infamous “one percent doctrine”: if there was only a 1 percent chance of something terrible happening, Cheney told aides to act as if it were a certainty. Because dreaming up scary scenarios is child’s play (especially when compared with the effort needed to make a rigorous threat assessment) the “one percent” doctrine guarantees that threats will be exaggerated.
As a five-star general and victorious WW2 commander, Eisenhower hardly needed to be convinced about the importance of national security. But he was reminding his fellow citizens that they would face a bleaker future if they ignored the opportunity costs that overly ambitious foreign policy goals entailed.
Because only a small proportion of American society is directly affected when these wars so badly, and because the men and women paying the blood price tend to be less well-educated or politically mobilized than the rest of the citizenry, politicians need not fear a sharp political backlash.
The Vietnam experience had inspired the so-called Powell Doctrine, which prescribed that the US intervene only when vital interests were at stake, rely on overwhelming force, and identify a clear exit strategy in advance.
If you’re strong, you don’t have to be smart.
Our national religion is democracy, when in doubt we revert to our democracy talking points. It is a matter of faith.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
She asked her Harvard colleague Lawrence Summers for advice on how to be effective. As she recounts: “He teed it up this way: I had a choice. I could be an insider or I could be an outsider. Outsiders can say whatever they want. But the people on the inside don’t listen to them. Insiders, however, get lots of access an a chance to push their ideas. People — powerful people — listen to what they have to say. But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule: They don’t criticize other insiders.”
It’s the first time, maybe in history, key advisors have gone into the administration to stop the president, not to enable him.
No one expects politicians to tell the whole truth all of the time, but how could foreign leaders have any confidence in assurances given by a man who lied with such facility and frequency?
He saw world politics as a purely zero-sum contest in which there are only winners and losers, but he seemed to have no clear sense of (1) what America’s core strategic interests are, (2) what regions matter most (and why), or (3) why a world of sovereign states still needs effective rules to manage key areas of joint activity.
Moreover, even if US foreign policy had consistently outperformed all other countries, that is not the real issue. The real question is whether US foreign policy is as good as one might reasonably expect, or whether the choices US leaders have made forced the American people to bear costs or run risks they could have avoided. Being better than some other countries is not a compelling defense when there’s still enormous room for improvement.
Millennials perceive fewer foreign dangers, are less reflexively patriotic, and are decidedly less supportive of military solutions to contemporary global problems.
It avoids costly and counterproductive crusades and allows for greater investment in the long-term ingredients of power and prosperity: education, infrastructure, and R&D. The US became a great power in the 19th century by staying out of distant wars and building the world’s largest and most advanced economy, much as China has been attempting to do over the last three decades. And as China has built power at home, the US has wasted trillions of dollars pursuing liberal hegemony, placing its position of primacy at risk.
But eschewing the “special relationship” between the US and Israel in favor of a normal one would have forced Israeli leaders to think more carefully about the long-term consequences on continued settlement growth.
Diplomacy is how a nation advances its interests and resolves problems with foreigners with minimal violence. Putting diplomacy first does not eliminate the need for military power, but sees it as the last resort rather than the first, and as a tool of statecraft rather than an end in itself.
When there is no potential hegemon in sight, however, Washington should strive to be on cordial terms with as many local states as possible. Cultivating businesslike relations with all states makes it easier to cooperate where interests overlap and would enhance US diplomatic leverage. In short, instead of having “special relationships” with some countries and treating others as pariahs, offshore balancers keep the lines of communication open with everyone.
Among other benefits, this approach reminds current partners not to take US support for granted, discourage free-riding, and gives both rivals and partners an incentive to compete for Washington’s attention and support. Rather than bending over backward to convince local allies that its pledges are 100 percent reliable, the US would take advantage of its favorable geopolitical position and play “hard to get” instead.
Some appointees will be serving in government for the first time, and many will remain in their posts for only a year or two. This situation is akin to having Apple, GM, or IBM replace their entire senior management team every four years and leaving key positions unfilled for months if not years at a time.
These pathologies would not be a problem if the US had modest foreign policy goals. Instead, Washington has been trying to conduct a breathtakingly ambitious foreign policy with a combination of amateurs and short-timers and with many key positions unfilled.
You have no idea how much it contributes to the general politeness and pleasantness of diplomacy when you have a little quiet armed force in the background.
Military power is a tool that must be harnessed to broader diplomatic and political ends, not the other way around.
Ironically, the attempt to spread liberal values abroad has compromised them at home.
The best way to do this is by setting a good example. Other societies are more likely to embrace US values if they believe the US is a just, prosperous, peaceful, and open society and they decide they want similar things for themselves. It follows that Americans who want to spread liberal values should do more to improve conditions here at home than to manipulate politics abroad.
As the Founding Fathers understood well, no nation can remain at war for long periods without compromising civil liberties and other liberal institutions. Warfare, after all, is a quintessentially illiberal activity: it is violent, coercive, and hierarchical, and it privileges secrecy and command over transparency and freedom.
For all its recent mistakes, America is still a remarkably lucky country, confirming Bismarck’s quip that “there seems to be a special providence that looks after drunkards, fools, and the USA.”
We have met the enemy and he is us.